Rational Action: The Sciences of Policy in Britain and America, 1940-1960 (Transformations: Studies in the History of Science and Technology)

The evolution of a set of fields -- including operations research and systems analysis -- intended to improve policymaking and explore the nature of rational decision-making. History of Science, Social Studies of Science, History of Technology, Public Policy Contents 8 Acknowledgments 10 Introduction 14 I Prelude 24 1 A. V. Hill in World War I, and His Complaints Afterward 26 2 Colonel Blimp: Tradition, Authority, and the Difficulty of Progress 32 3 Military Heuristics and the Allied Bombing Campaigns 36 II The Origins of the Sciences of Policy 44 4 L. B. C. Cunningham and the Mathematical Theory of Combat 46 5 Patrick Blackett and the Anti-Aircraft Command Research Group 52 6 Scientific Advisers and Operational Research in the British Military Services 58 7 “Not Yet Enough”: The British Rhetoric of Science and Its Coordination 70 8 Operations Research and Field Liaison, 1941–1945 80 III A Wartime Intellectual Economy 94 9 The Legitimacy of Wartime Operations Research 96 10 The Methods of Operations Research 102 11 Meta-Calculation and the Mathematics of War 112 12 John Williams, Edwin Paxson, and the Stop-Gap Mathematical Life 124 13 The B-29 Problem 132 14 Raisins in the Oatmeal 138 IV The Lessons of the War 144 15 Operations Research without Operations 146 16 The Challenge of Rational Procurement 158 17 Wartime Operational Research in Postwar Britain 168 18 The Operational Research Club 176 19 The American Reinvention of Operations Research 182 V Rationality and Theory 188 20 Theories of Decision, Allocation, and Design 190 21 The Anatomy of Decision: Inventory Theory 200 22 The Rise of Theoretical Operations Research 208 23 Systems Analysis: The Challenge of Rational Engineering 212 24 Rationality and Decision: Varieties of Theory 224 VI The Intellectual Economy of Theory and Practice 242 25 The Civilianization of Operations Research on the Charles 244 26 West Churchman, Russell Ackoff, and the Philosophy of Decision Making 256 27 The Management Sciences 264 28 The Reformation of Systems Analysis 270 VII Epilogue 284 29 Dr. Strangelove: Rationality, Authority, and Sin 286 30 Conclusion 302 Notes 314 Bibliography 362 Index 396 History,Science,Research,Methodology,Great Britain,20th Century,Science and State,United States The evolution of a set of fields--including operations research and systems analysis--intended to improve policymaking and explore the nature of rational decision-making. During World War II, the Allied military forces faced severe problems integrating equipment, tactics, and logistics into successful combat operations. To help confront these problems, scientists and engineers developed new means of studying which equipment designs would best meet the military's requirements and how the military could best use the equipment it had on hand. By 1941 they had also begun to gather and analyze data from combat operations to improve military leaders' ordinary planning activities. In Rational Action , William Thomas details these developments, and how they gave rise during the 1950s to a constellation of influential new fields--which he terms the "sciences of policy"--that included operations research, management science, systems analysis, and decision theory. Proponents of these new sciences embraced a variety of agendas. Some aimed to improve policymaking directly, while others theorized about how one decision could be considered more rational than another. Their work spanned systems engineering, applied mathematics, nuclear strategy, and the philosophy of science, and it found new niches in universities, in businesses, and at think tanks such as the RAND Corporation. The sciences of policy also took a prominent place in epic narratives told about the relationships among science, state, and society in an intellectual culture preoccupied with how technology and reason would shape the future. Thomas follows all these threads to illuminate and make new sense of the intricate relationships among scientific analysis, policymaking procedure, and institutional legitimacy at a crucial moment in British and American history. During World War II, the Allied military forces faced severe problems integrating equipment, tactics, and logistics into successful combat operations. To help confront these problems, scientists and engineers developed new means of studying which equipment designs would best meet the military's requirements and how the military could best use the equipment it had on hand. By 1941 they had also begun to gather and analyze data from combat operations to improve military leaders' ordinary planning activities. In 'Rational Action', William Thomas details these developments, and how they gave rise during the 1950s to a constellation of influential new fields, which he terms the 'sciences of policy', that included operations research, management science, systems analysis, and decision theory